It must not, however, be imagined from this that the ladies of the _relégation_ at the Isle of Pines are exactly models of female deportment, for, as the Commandant told me afterwards, they once revolted, and before help could be got they had caught two surveillants, stripped them stark naked, and made them run the gauntlet of the Convent between two rows of beautiful palms, after which they douched them well in a muddy duck-pond. They were proceeding to treat the good sisters in the same way when rescue arrived from Kuto and the other camps. The male prisoners were a terribly hard-looking lot. They were brought up in twos and threes—plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses—and they accused each other of every sort of crime, from stealing a bit of bread to attempted murder. The English axiom about dog eating dog does not hold good among _relégués_. They will steal from each other just as cheerfully as they will from anybody else, and will descend to any little meanness to spite each other. Most of the offences were of the pettiest and meanest kind, such as stealing each other’s clothes, or food, or tools and selling them for a penny or so to some one else who had lost his. Others were up for being out of bounds after hours, and I noticed that these nearly all said they’d been fishing, which was not inappropriate. During the proceedings I was very much struck by the appearance of an Arab in the grey uniform of the _quartier disciplinaire_. He was a tall, well-built, handsome fellow of about thirty, with a frank, open expression and an ever-smiling mouth which continually showed a magnificent set of teeth. There was a wonderful difference between him and his fellow-scoundrels, but I learned afterwards that he was the biggest scoundrel of the whole lot. Two or three hundred years ago he would probably have commanded a fleet of Corsairs, and made his name a terror from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. Now, thanks to changed environment, he was only a deserter and a common thief who could not even keep his hands off the property of his fellow-thieves. The procedure of the Court was quite different to anything we have in England. The prisoners were all, as I say, brought up and examined individually with accusers and witnesses. Then they were taken away what time the Court deliberated and fixed the sentence. Then the whole lot were brought in and ranged up along the two sides of the room. The _greffier_ called out the names, and each man stepped forward, heard his sentence, and was marched out. The Arab took his fifteen days’ prison with an even jauntier smile than usual.